


A Better Tale

by Devilinthebox (princegrisejoie)



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Late Night Conversations, Sensuality, set after canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrisejoie/pseuds/Devilinthebox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war has left Elincia with a lingering fear - that her hands might, one day, fail to find Lucia's pulse. She looks for the familiar rhythm in secret every night, or she cannot rest, even now that Lucia always sleeps at her side.<br/>This time, Lucia wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Better Tale

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the incomparable Azure, and a tribute to a pair I absolutely adore.

Fingers, cold to the bone, tremble as they approach Lucia’s bare skin. It seems to glow softly beneath the moonlight.

Bodies are not so beautiful after their souls have left them. _She can’t be dead, Elincia!_

Still, she has to check. Her hand is hesitant, frail as it reaches her beloved’s neck. Ludveck would mock her, say the little queen cannot do anything with her hands. How amusing. Her agile fingers have been trained to find a pulse by now.

Lately it has become the shortest route to Lucia’s heart.

_Don’t be dead, please, don’t be dead as well…_

It seems she is deep in sleep now, but Elincia knows better. Danger is ever close in these hazardous times, and Lucia will not forget the taste of death gripping at her throat any time soon.

She will wake up at the faintest sound.

And perhaps this is why Elincia barely skims the skin right now. Her fingers move gracefully, lazily, like dancers caught in a romantic dance.

This sounds like a game, but it’s a necessity to be careful. Any brusque movement could wake Lucia…and ruining her rest for some silly little girl fear? That would be so shameful.

It has become a ritual, to check Lucia’s quiet breathing every night. The first time it happened was after a horrible nightmare – the images would not leave Elincia, flashes before her eyes of Lucia’s corpse hanging before a heinous crowd of people let down by their queen and protector.

(Even then, Elincia could not blame her people.)

She traces a faint scar that coils around Lucia’s beautiful neck. Late at night, no necklace or garb of leather covers the remains of that day. Sometimes, at court or during her small councils, Elincia’s eyes slide to that neck, charming and so sleek, and she blushes in shame. It’s just…hard to forget; Lucia could be dead now.

As they played war as children, Elincia acted as their lucky charm with her heartfelt, pretty words, Lucia was the one who saved them – she dared face their bloodthirsty enemies, whilst her brother refused to leave Elincia to hide on her own.

Their childhood fantasies vanished and did not leave a visible scar. It is the sadness of happy times: they usually leave us without even a trace.

Lucia never seems to notice Elincia’s sidelong looks at her neck – she is too focused. Her unbridled zeal, it has grown to be unbearable for the young queen. It reminds her she was never meant to sit on a throne, it reminds her she is nothing without those who love her so intensely they can only bend the knee.

It sends a terrible doubt in her mind, that perhaps Lucia follows her oldest and her dearest friend, and the woman she loves…but not the queen, for the queen is unworthy of such devotion.

Shame washes over Elincia, and she forgets to breathe for a heartbeat, she forgets to be gentle. A misstep in her careful dance.

Vague words escape Lucia – to Elincia’s dismay, the undeniable sign that she is waking up.

 “I woke you. I’m so sorry, I tried to be discreet. I tried and I failed.”

Lucia’s sharp features seem to soften. A tremor in Elincia’s voice tend to have that sort of effect on her.

“You couldn’t sleep?”

A small nod from Elincia. She doesn’t want to speak again, if it only serves to worry Lucia. 

“Nightmares again?” Lucia persists, and doesn’t wait for an answer to pull herself across the bed, closer to her queen and cherished friend. “Then it’s me who should apologise,” she says, honorable in and out a suit of armour. “I should have woken up for you. This is my duty to you.”

“Don’t speak of duty. Not now.”

Elincia says this in a breath, desperate eyes staring at an imaginary spot far, far away; at the bright future she can’t possibly embody.

A firm hand warms the bare, cold skin of her shoulder.

“There is duty in love too, Elincia. You have to protect those you cherish more than yourself. Such is my belief.”

“This is silly…I should be able to protect myself. I am a queen. An entire kingdom depends on me, and I am so fearful…You can fight...better than me.”

“Do you remember our games?” In a phrase, Lucia takes Elincia back to her secret garden, a clandestine childhood she spent far off courtiers and their daily mendacities. Elincia nods. Oh yes. She remembers all too well.

“I was always the one chasing after the monster. Geoffrey took care of you. He kept you by his side, found the best hiding place while I would spy on the beast, determine its weak spots and plan the attack. I thought I had forgotten about these adventures we imagined, safe and innocent within the Royal Palace…I have no memory for childish games, and yet they came back to me that day I almost died.”

Her sincerity silences Elincia, who, with her eyes veiled, offers some sort of smile. Lucia sees through that fragile mask at once, squeezes Elincia’s hand.

“I do not intend to add onto your sorrows,” she says. It sounds like an excuse. There is a soft edge in her voice that can pierce a chest and leave a cut, acute like none other. “Do you know why I always volunteered to kill the monster? Because I live to protect. I live to serve. This is how I make use of my heart. If my death means something, I will go with a light heart, I will go happy, and sending a smile over to you.”

Pride glints in Lucia’s eyes, and she seems that brave little girl yet again, the one who was as worthy as any elite knight in the kingdom.

It would be so cruel, to break the spell.

But it’s adult Lucia, mature Lucia that Elincia needs. It ease no fear to revive a comforting past. She has to disappoint the petulant child she once was, and set the memories aside. As a queen. She dares lift her head and pays her heart no mind, though it thumps madly against her bones.

Lucia stares at her expectantly.

Elincia speaks at last. She is abashed to find her voice so clear:

“That…that doesn’t comfort me. Only you are satisfied in that scenario. What of my pain when I find you gone, Lucia? I prepared myself once and I can’t – I can’t think of it as a demonstration of my virtue. What valor has a Queen who watches her closest friend die, not for a noble cause, but as a price to pay for her own weakness? You would throw your life for me…I’m not proud of that. How could I be? I wish no one would ever die for me.”

They share a silence, or, as the poets say, a conversation for lovers. It is a peculiar sort of silence, the kind that flood over all the other sounds. It’s early morning, a perfect time for flying - it’s raining just a bit and a distant thunder makes a beautiful setting. Elincia doesn’t think about any of this.

She’ll notice later, when Lucia stops touching her arm.

“It was egoistical of me.” Naturally, it’s Lucia who manages to break their silence, so comfortable and seemingly endless. “Will you allow me to rephrase?”

Elincia nods. She would try her voice, were her throat not parched. Lucia’s lips part and it’s tempting to kiss her, to skip through the pages to their happy ever after.

But Lucia releases her grip on Elincia’s arm, falls back to her lying position on the bed and talks, with eyes, blue and cold, torn off Elincia.

“I am a knight, you see, I can’t be frightened of death. This is what I meant. Now, a knight doesn’t move on their own. Justice, and glory, and goodness do not move a knight, not truly. We are not philosophers, these notions are nothing but empty shells…a swift breeze we can’t feel from beneath the armour, charming tales to ease the populace. We do not have time for them. That is, if no one lingers there, in our marrow, in our chests, reminding us justice and glory and goodness can be embodied. Knights need a sovereign in their minds as well.” A faint, evanescent colour blossoms on Lucia’s cheeks then. Is it red? Could it be?

Lucia was never the story-teller after all, and feelings are to her as hazardous as firework – they should be treasured, watched, guarded.

With that thought comes a distinct memory, a souvenir she is fond of, this time. This happens during one of their childish role plays, in a courtyard of marble, odorous fresh flowers and relaxing fountains. Lucia, as always, is holding her wooden sword with two firm hands, and she pretends to slay a statue their imaginations turned into a three-headed monster. Elincia’s fingers dig into Geoffrey’s palm as their story grows so vividly in her heart that she is persuaded this is the day Lucia will perish. This is a folly, of course. Lucia’s simply playing and practicing and all she risks is a scolding from her father for the pirouettes she peppers her sword fighting with.

This ends well, however, as they never saw the use of an otherwise story. Lucia parades back to them, tosses her brother a smile, and plants a kiss upon Elincia’s cheek. Then, and only then does she notice their expressions – the distant traces of fright in their eyes, and Elincia’s quivering bottom lip. Shooting a sharp look at her brother, she chooses the softest tone of voice and apologise for the worry she caused.

It was clear she did not mean it. They were children, and all children want their desires to align perfectly with reality.

What Lucia expected was the embrace reserved to heroes. A fairytale welcome. Tears of joy, and Elincia’s bright smile as contrast. And all she managed to create was anguish, not unlike the statue-formed monster she fought.

“Elincia…do you resent me still?” Lucia, who has certainly forgotten all about that day, is staring.

“I don’t. I-I never did. I was worried and I wanted you to reassure me in the way I saw fit.”

“I should have been sweeter to you,” Lucia says softly. “I keep saying I’m a knight, but I can’t act chivalrous, it seems.”  

Lit up by a blaze in the night sky, Lucia’s rueful eyes give Elincia pause. Sorrow is not in Lucia’s nature. If it shows now, it may be fate’s design – a hint of romance in the midst of all this, at long last.

Elincia turns over on her side so as to gain a perfect view of Lucia, and whilst darkness engulfs their bedroom again, faraway sounds of thunder slowly receding in favour of a pallid morning sky, she cups her beloved’s face with her two hands.

That sight and the beauty of the moment and the realisation they might never have gotten their chances at love, this is what inclines Elincia to bend for a kiss. This may be not the queen’s habit – she waits for her kisses usually, but the crown and the duties it carries are the least of her concern.

Lucia is alive. She makes herself aware of this.

Her heart is beating, oh and it is so _noisy_. Elincia doesn’t have to find a pulse; Lucia’s chest heaves not for a catch of breath, not for the effort of coiling her legs round Elincia’s thighs. It has to support a heart, made mad by love and devotion.

“I will not die,” Lucia whispers, perhaps to divert attention from the hand she settles on Elincia’s waist. “I will not die as long as I have the best reason to live. Tell me not to die, Elincia.”

“Don’t die.”

A smile, almost innocent. “And that order shall be obeyed.”

What’s the use of a tale if it doesn’t end well?


End file.
